What Is Strategic Content Marketing and How To Increase Conversions

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Providing valuable content should be the core to your marketing strategy. While traditional marketing is becoming more and more obsolete, otherwise known as direct marketing.

Providing valuable content should be the core to your marketing strategy. While traditional marketing is becoming more and more obsolete, otherwise known as direct marketing, content marketing is quickly becoming the go-to strategy for increasing leads and sales conversions.

But what exactly is content marketing and how can you as an internet marketer, whether novice or experienced use content to scale your business many times over?

Let’s start out by defining exactly what is content marketing.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is about providing valuable, relevant, and engaging content to potential customers. It can be achieved through blogs, videos, social media, emails, infographics, etc.

Content marketing is about taking the time to learn about customers so that you are able to provide what they are looking for. This means understanding their pain points so you are able to provide the right solutions.

It is also about being creative with your content so that you are able to stand out and make your business memorable to your readers. This helps you in building authority and trust with your audience which can increase the likelihood of readers not only returning to your content, but potentially purchasing your product or services.

How Does Content Marketing Differ From Direct Marketing?

To better understand how content marketing is the future of digital marketing, we need to understand why direct marketing is slowly becoming obsolete and outdated.

In direct marketing, your goal is to claim as many potential customers as you can as quickly as possible. Approximately 10 years ago, traditional marketing methods such as direct marketing was very effective, but as we move more into the information age with advance technologies, information is exactly what readers are searching and requiring when it comes to marketing.

Direct marketing is a short-term strategy, whereas content marketing can have a long-term impact on your business. In addition, direct marketing requires you to spend money upfront in order to get the results that you want.

Content marketing, on the other hand, takes time and effort but will help you build trust with your target audience.Content marketing and its benefits are a trending and thriving marketing strategy. It is a technique that encourages the sharing of content that is not directly related to your company.

It is a way to gather attention and create a buzz around your company. This type of marketing is also a way to build trust and create awareness.

Content Marketing Business Benefits

Many marketers, especially individuals who are new to internet marketing, may not have the marketing capital needed to drive leads and sales through means such as PPC (Pay Per Click) ads or through the use of influencer marketing tactics.

If you’re looking for ways to boost your SEO rankings, then you should start by creating high quality content. The use of providing your readers with various forms of content is the ideal way to increase your rankings on major search engines such as Google and Bing.

For many businesses, content marketing is the go-to strategy used to build their brand online. Unlike traditional marketing tactics, content marketing gives your brand a competitive advantage.

According to studies, approximately 40 percent of potential buyers look at three to five pieces of content before purchasing something online. Businesses who use content marketing tend to grow faster than businesses without it.

More importantly, for content marketing to be truly effective as an online marketing strategy, marketers need the ability to focus on creating and disseminating relevant and valuable content on a consistent basis in order to attract and retain their readers.

The most successful marketers are those who use both strategies to create more effective campaigns that deliver results. Plus, they’re the ones who can see how each strategy complements the other. But we’ll get more in detail later in the article.

How Does Content Marketing Work

Now that you have a firm understanding of what content marketing is, let’s dive into how content marketing works and some of the best use cases for using this form of marketing.

Typically when we think of content marketing, blogging comes to mind using a CMS (content management system such as WordPress), but there are many other forms of content that can provide just as much value and can also be more consumable to the reader.

The ultimate goal of content marketing is to provide content that either entertains, inspire, informs or educates the reader. Doing this will help you build rapport with your target audience and also helps in building your online brand.

In general, there are 3 major stages when it comes to content marketing to ensure your ability to build brand awareness for your business.

Content Marketing Awareness

The first stage is awareness, here you’ll want to concentrate on the top concerns of your readers based on some of the pain points they may be experiencing on your topic. Especially focusing on any challenges or questions they may have which increases the likelihood of them finding and reading your content online.

Some of the best content for the awareness stage is: Blog posts, articles, and videos. Furthermore, it’s important to make sure that your website has a strong call-to-action button on every page so that visitors can easily find what they are looking for.

The last thing you want is to have people come across your site and then leave because they didn’t know where to go next. You need to create an easy navigation system that will help them get where they want to be as quickly as possible.

Content Marketing Consideration Stage

The second stage of content marketing is known as consideration.

In the consideration stage, your content should consist of being both informative and persuasive in a marketing sense. Your content should help the reader by educating them on functions and features to look for that could potential resolve their pain points.

Your goal during this phase of your content marketing strategy is to give your readers so much information and details about a certain topic, that your marketing (persuasive) portion of the content could easily get your reader to convert.

Some of the best types of content for this stage is: Checklist/Worksheets, Case Studies and How-to articles.

By providing valuable content that helps to solve a problem the reader may be having ensures that you will be seen as an authority and allows those individuals to be more inclined to share your content with others which could potentially give your content some virility online.

In this section, we’ll talk how some forms of content marketing works and why these particular strategies benefit the reader to build trust and get them to conduct whatever call to action you may have for your end goal.

Content Marketing Closing Stage

As with any business or online marketer, you’re goal is to get your readers to do one thing:

Convert!

And the third and final stage of your content marketing strategy should be knowing how to “close” on the sale or lead. At this stage, you want to focus on the sale and blatant use of sales and marketing tactics to get your readers to purchase your product or service that you provide.

You want to drive home how your product or service helps to solve their pain points by using the content presented to them in stages 1 and 2.

Those first two stages are strictly designed to build up K.L.T. (Know, Like, and Trust) with your audience. Once this is established, the close “should” be much easier by showing your expertise in the subject.

Some of the best content to use in this stage is: Case studies, user generated content, product videos, buyers guide, and testimonials.

Good Content Marketing Examples

Everyone wants to make money, but you might not know that content marketing can make it pretty easy to make some extra cash.

More people are visiting websites daily than ever before – nearly 3.3 billion internet users worldwide in 2017 alone, according to Statista. That’s only expected to rise as smartphone use increases and more companies start to adopt mobile-responsive sites.

Additionally, Google reported that searchers are now looking beyond the first page of search results for information about a product or service they’re curious about.

That means there’s an insatiable demand for information – if you have great content, you can write blog posts or create videos that will catch people’s attention and make them eager to learn more. Your job then is to make it easy for them to make a purchase.

Generating a blog post is an easy way to add relevant information to your site that is shareable with your target audience.

As a blogger, you have the opportunity to creatively share your knowledge and expertise on a subject with your audience. This content can be shareable via social media, email campaigns, and more. Providing relevant and high-quality content is a key component to any content marketing campaign.

The blog is also one of the best vehicles for converting viewers into customers and can even increase your search engine rankings. It’s a perfect way to attract and keep visitors on your site and interacting with your company, which in turn can result in higher conversion rates.

For some people, being able to read content that’s strictly focused on a niche related topic is more appealing as opposed to reading information off of sites such as Wikipedia. Sites that tend to focus on one specific niche or topic tend to get more traffic when it comes to consuming content.

But, you don’t need millions of dollars or make millions of dollars overnight, either.

It’s easy for anyone with a computer and an internet connection to make money online. Still, you want to make sure that your content marketing is helping your business grow instead of taking away from things like time spent on customer support or sales opportunities. You can make extra cash in several different ways:

Create information products like ebooks, schedule webinars, or live videos about your topic.
Teach people through blog posts or social media platforms.
Sell advertising space on your site for other companies.
Use affiliate links in articles relevant to your audience – if someone buys something using their link, they get a percentage of the profits.
Make money with ads on your site/blog.
Make money by selling leads to companies looking for information.

If you think about all the ways people make money online, it’s a huge amount of businesses, and there are billions of dollars being exchanged every year. Content marketing is just one way to make some extra cash or even make a full-time living online.

Get started:

You don’t need a lot of money or years of experience writing articles either – it doesn’t matter. Some people use old smartphones as news cameras and start making videos right away – other people spend thousands on fancy equipment and edit their work into polished products that rival professionally made films.

– Post videos on YouTube for free

– Get a Tumblr blog and make good use of their SEO settings, make social media accounts with your topic, make sure to make your site mobile responsive so more people can see it on iPhones and other smart devices (look up Google’s PageSpeed Insights if you don’t know how).

You won’t make money overnight – like any business or a new skill; it takes time before you’ll start to make some real cash. Just make sure that everything you’re doing helps your business grow. Even little things like having an email newsletter signup form on your website or posting regularly to social media sites add to the money you make over time.

– You can make a few dollars here and there by starting an email newsletter, but make sure that the content of your emails is good enough for people to feel like they want to read them – don’t just send out one or two newsletters and give up on it.

Don’t expect success right away either – you might not make much at first, and some days you won’t make any money at all, but every day you continue with your business, success gets closer.

Other ways to make money:

– Sell advertising space on your site/blog – seriously, most blog hosting sites have this option built-in; just find the ads section under settings. Ensure that whatever advertisement is displayed is relevant to your audience; make sure that the rules are displayed right away about what you’re willing to allow.

– Sell information – make an ebook or make a series of videos that teach people something they need to know! The best thing about selling ebooks online is that once you make it, it’s available for as long as you want – so if someone wants your information but doesn’t have the money at the time – you can make other arrangements with them to get it later. You can even put PayPal links in your ebook so people can give their email addresses and pay later on.

– Affiliate links – affiliate marketing works very well for some businesses that can generate lots of traffic through their websites/blogs. Make sure to make a lot of traffic before you make an affiliate account, though.

– Link shorteners – make links shorter with bit.ly or another similar link shortener. You make money from each click-through on those links – make sure they’re relevant to your audience though, don’t just put a random link there and hope that people will click it without knowing what it is.

– Text ads – use ad networks like Google AdSense or Bing Ads to place text ads on your blog. Make sure that the right amount of text shows up next to the image so that someone will be willing to read it and click through.

Some people make money by making a lot of content for a website or a blog, but not much from advertisements on those pages. Instead, they offer their expertise as an online consultant to answer other people’s questions about the topic at hand.

If you have a WordPress blog about cooking and food, you might create a page that allows people to submit their questions about various recipes or techniques. Then, if someone wants specific help with making a beef stew or something similar, you could make them an offer where they’re willing to pay for your assistance.

Content marketing can be a great way to make money. But, it’s not always easy for beginners who don’t know where to start or how to get started. If you’re looking for a way to make money, there are many ways that content marketing can help.

One of the best is through affiliate links and online advertising. There are lots of companies out there who pay people like you and me when we promote their products in our blogs or other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Influencer marketing can be a great way to get traffic to your content and it’s also one of the best ways for beginners who are looking to gain more brand exposure to themselves or their business.

But will delve more into how to generate traffic for your content in the next blog post!

In summary, content marketing if done properly can be a very powerful way to not only build awareness, but to establish yourself as an expert on the topic.

Remember, initially when you’re just starting out, you don’t want to overly sale your readers into buying either a product or a service until they get to know and trust you.

Your content marketing efforts will go along way in establishing your authority in that specific topic. Do this right with your “cold” audience and they will keep coming back for more.

Furthermore, you can use the same content to target other topics as well. This is a content strategy known as “repurposing”. Most content marketers are extremely proficient in taking a piece of content and either rewording it slightly or editing it to be posted on various social media and video platforms.

But first, no matter what form of content you want to utilize, whether it’s a blog, landing pages, or checklist. You’ll want to make sure that you’re properly building up your content for the close.

I hope that you’ve found this article informative. Next we’ll take a look at some ways you can go about promoting your content in hopes of generating traffic. Both are dependent on each other in order for your brand to be successful online.

Checkout our Frequently Asked Questions Below:

Is Content Marketing Hard To Do?

It’s not difficult to understand why it’s difficult for many businesses to start and maintain a successful content marketing campaign. There’s no real roadmap for content marketing and there’s no one way to measure success. It takes a lot of time and energy to start and maintain a successful content marketing campaign, and the payoff is unclear.

However, it is absolutely possible to generate success with content marketing; it just depends on how you define success. It’s not about reaching the widest audience possible in the shortest amount of time, and it’s not about making your hashtag trend on social media. It’s about taking a specific approach and making sure you understand the parameters you’re working within.

Where Can I Get Good Content Ideas?

Coming up with good content marketing ideas can be a daunting task for some. But generally speaking, there are really great content ideas all around you. Some of the ways that I come up with my content topics are:

– Viewing others’ social media posts (you can get a plethora of content ideas by looking at Facebook timelines and Pinterest boards just to get your mind going with ideas.

– Browsing through niche related forums has helped me in getting really great content ideas. If you have access to Reddit, then you have a wealth of really great content ideas just in the one platform. But you can search Google to find other niche related forums that will give you even more ideas outside of Reddit.

– If your niche is covered in special magazine publications, you can even browse through those to get some really great content. You’d be surprised how much content you could piggyback off of to further show your expertise on a certain topic.

Do You Need A Large Budget For Content Marketing?

The short answer is no!

In most cases, you can start your content marketing strategy off with as little as $5 per month for hosting to have your own website for blogging. This is very doable for most content marketers looking to make money online.

But even if you don’t want to start off with your own website, there are FREE blogging platforms out there such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com to name a couple.

As you progress through your content marketing journey and your able to generate traffic to your content, then you could put more of your marketing investment into scaling your brand or business.

Can I Use Content Marketing To Promote Affiliate Products?

Absolutely!

Content marketing works great even for affiliate marketing. No matter what your product or service is, using content marketing for brand awareness is sure to be the best way to promote your affiliate products.

Content marketing is a good practice for increasing your affiliate sales it is the first step in inbound marketing which is use to convert visitors into leads and generate more sales

Typically, the best way to use content marketing is to provide reviews to your affiliate products. This can be done through a blog post or Youtube video. The more consistent you are in cranking out content, the more likely a reader or Youtube subscriber will be more incline to purchase the product through your affiliate link. rketing is quickly becoming the go-to strategy for increasing leads and sales conversions.